


Bingo "When was the last time you ate or drank? How about slept?"

by taylor_tut



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Dehydration, Exhaustion, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Sick Jaskier | Dandelion, Sickfic, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23150254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: A whump bingo from my tumblr! Jaskier goes looking for Geralt when he's gone for too long on a beastie hunt, and they find each other.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 376





	Bingo "When was the last time you ate or drank? How about slept?"

Jaskier had been looking for Geralt for three days. 

He’d gone off to kill some beast, Jaskier had sort of embellished the details in preparation for writing a song so far that he couldn’t quite remember what was actually going to happen, and had promised that he’d be back before the sun rose after the full moon. That deadline had come and gone, and Jaskier had been patient: Geralt was never entirely punctual, after all, and beasts were unpredictable. He’d been content to wait—he always was—, to get some supplies for when they got back on the road (his boots and cloak badly needed replacing), to talk to some pretty people down in the pub and have a few drinks before turning in early and getting more uninterrupted sleep than he’d gotten in months. The next morning, after all, he was sure that he’d wake to find Geralt already throwing his bag in his face and ordering him to get up and ready, lest he be left behind. Might as well enjoy it while he could, right?

Except he’d been wrong. The following morning, he’d woken up, once more, to the sun streaming gently through the windows at midmorning, alone and rested. 

Again, maybe a little more unusual, but not altogether concerning. Geralt was a big boy; he could handle himself. Jaskier would just enjoy his final day of respite before he had to get back on the road again. 

That was how he ended up here, three days later and halfway up the mountain trailing a man who was probably either dead somewhere under the constantly-falling snow or had a week’s head start and years’ worth of survival instincts on him. 

Jaskier hated his choices. Why did he do this? Food had been scarce from the get-go, since he’d spent his own money on new shoes and warmer clothes and had been relying on the coin Geralt wound gain from defeating the beast to purchase perishables. The water he’d brought along had frozen inside the waterskin within the first day, so he’d taken to eating snow from the top layer, where it was safe from dirt and rocks, to solve both his thirst and hunger. The first night, he’d tried sleeping, but he couldn’t: some combination of worry and cold and the blindingly white snow reflecting the nearly-full moon kept him feeling wired and energetic, if unfocused and wild. He didn’t need sleep: he could rest after he knew Geralt was okay. 

He was starting to regret this a little. Because of the snow, he could scarcely see a few meters ahead of him—or could he see for kilometers, and everything was just the same, blinding, featureless white?—and his body seemed to have given up even on shivering, too exhausted to do anything but put one foot in front of another. His growling stomach had given way to hunger cramps, which had given way to nausea, and now it was fluctuating between all three, settled currently on a distracting midpoint between hungry and sick. Eating anything heartier than broth would probably make him throw up, but he couldn’t pull the back of his mind away from the thought of a plate of bread, cheese, and lamb from the tavern in which he’d been carousing while Geralt was away. He had to fight to keep his eyes open, but when he sat down and tried to sleep, they wouldn’t stay closed. 

In short, he was miserable, and he had no idea which way to go, not to find Geralt and not to find his way back down the mountain to the town. 

Fuck. 

Was he going to die up here? Was this really how it ended?

“What the fuck are you doing?” shouted a voice so familiar that Jaskier was sure he must have imagined it. He didn’t even bother to look up until Roach shoved her way in front of him, effectively knocking him back into the snow. If he weren’t already saturated with water which had melted from the snow and then refrozen in the wind, he might have been a bit annoyed, but as it stood, he couldn’t even feel it. 

Blearily, he looked up at her rider, too good to be true, too unscathed to really be here in front of him. 

“Jaskier,” Geralt barked again, swinging down from Roach and demanding an answer to what he’d thought was a rhetorical question. “What the fuck were you thinking?” 

“I was looking for you,” Jaskier replied, stumbling forward when relief hit him like drunkenness, making him feel lightheaded and sore as the fear left him. Geralt was alright. And though he wasn’t quite sure who had technically found who, his arms were around him, the only thing holding him upright at this point. “You’ve been gone for days.” 

Geralt grimaced, pulled Jaskier tighter against him as a gust of wind tried to drown out their conversation. 

“The storm hit, and I didn’t want to try to fight it,” he explained. “But it’s showing no sign of letting up.” 

That made sense. He should have thought of that. 

“How did you find me?” 

Geralt shook his head, letting Jaskier know that he would not be taking any questions until his own were answered. 

“How many days have you been searching for me?” 

Jaskier shrugged. “Three?” he tried. It was difficult to remember, really, without setting up camp for any longer than an hour or two at a time for rest. “I think?” 

Geralt growled. “When was the last time you ate or drank?” Jaskier sunk forward, trusting Geralt to take his weight when his own knees seemed unable to support it. “How about slept?” 

He hated the petulant, miserable sound that rose from the back of his throat and hoped against hope that Geralt hadn’t heard it over the wind. “Had to find you. To know you were safe.” 

In one swift motion, Jaskier felt himself lifted from the ground and onto Roach’s back. Distantly, he recognized that perhaps he should be worried about that, because Geralt really only ever let him ride double with him when he was near death. However, he couldn’t muster the energy to care. Geralt was safe, and once again, near impossibly, fate had brought them back together against every single one of a thousand more likely scenarios. 

“Rest, bard,” Geralt murmured in his ear, his grip warm and tight around him. “I’ll take it from here.”

“I found you,” Jaskier found the confidence to say. He knew Geralt would hate it. He knew how disconcerting he found it to have someone to feel lost without, to have somewhere he needed to return to even when a job was done. It tied him down; it slowed him down. 

“You found me,” he instead agreed. “You should not have gone searching.”

“I’ll always go searching,” Jaskier argued fervently, feeling the last of his energy being funneled into one fiery-eyed gaze. “Because I want to find you.” 

Geralt hummed. “Then next time,” he finally spoke, “I’ll have to return sooner.” 

It was all Jaskier needed to hear before drifting off into a protected and restful sleep. 


End file.
